DJT: TPP, RIP!
Foes of War, Now Silent, Should Celebrate
By John V. Walsh | Dissident Voice | January 25, 2017
On day one of Donald Trump’s presidency, he drove a stake through the heart of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), as he had repeatedly promised during his campaign. Foes of war should rejoice and congratulate Trump since the TPP was the economic arm of the “Pivot to Asia”, the military/economic assault on China promoted vigorously by Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, neocons and humanitarian interventionists of every stripe. It was a trade agreement that linked twelve Pacific Rim powers but pointedly excluded China in an effort to isolate and weaken it.
Thus in his first hours in office Trump has, in fact, made a move away from confrontation with China – and the goal of US global domination. Such a move should elicit support and congratulations for Trump from foes of war and Empire. So far there has not been much of that.
Let us be clear. If Donald Trump were lying during the campaign about the TTP, so beloved by corporate America and the neocons, he could have revived it – easily. After all he has a clear majority in both House and Senate whom he is increasingly bending to his will. And there are many Democrats pining to please their corporate masters who would have joined his effort at TPP resuscitation. But Trump did not do this. He was dead serious about his promise. Expect the same on Détente 2.0 with Russia and other policies to which he has made a solid commitment.
Trump’s first full day in office was a great day for peace on another front as well. Marco Rubio, aka “Little Marco,” announced he would vote to confirm Rex Tillerson as Trump’s Secretary of State. Tillerson, a friend of Putin and someone with a clear understanding of Russia, is associated with Trump’s oft-stated desire to “get along” with Russia. Tillerson has been the target of the neocons who hoped to stop him, and Rubio tried to pressure him into declaring Putin a “war criminal” in his confirmation hearings, something that Tillerson refused to do. Like Trump, Tillerson does not seem like the kind of person who is easily pushed around.
That was two strikes for peace on Day One of the Trump presidency.
As is well known, the TPP was opposed by many progressives and labor leaders for reasons other than a desire for peace. For these activists it was correctly seen as one more attack on democracy and sovereignty, written in secret and designed to give corporations and banks control over the terms of trade and laws of the land. Democratic Party progressives opposed it vehemently, and so it would make sense for them to hail Trump’s action.
But look at the comments at that bastion of conformist progressivism, the HuffPost, and you will find that many progressives have abruptly switched and are opposing Trump and even praising the TPP! Thankfully at least a few commenters over there are honest enough to admit the hypocrisy behind this switch. One HuffPost commenter wrote:
OK, when Bernie was talking about how bad the TPP was almost every comment here (on Huffington Post) was how they didn’t trust Hillary to get us out of the TPP. Now that Trump pulled us out, people are taking the opposite view. … At least admit that this is a good thing. Does it matter who stops TPP? 9 months ago we all agreed it was a bad thing.
This stance is all too reminiscent of Democratic “progressives” who were out in force opposing the war on Iraq under Bush but were nowhere to be seen when Obama came into office and continued the war.
But let us give credit where credit is due. Bernie Sanders announced his pleasure with Trump’s deep sixing of the TPP, according to the Guardian, which reported:
Sanders praised Trump’s decision, saying TPP is ‘dead and gone’….If President Trump is serious about a new policy to help American workers then I would be delighted to work with him.
Richard Trumka, head of the AFL-CIO also praised the termination of TPP, but unlike Bernie he did not mention Trump by name as the terminator. This is not surprising since the labor misleadership did not back Bernie, the choice of the rank and file, but instead squandered their dues on support of pro-TPP Hillary.
Sanders’s and Trumka’s concerns about TPP are economic and these concerns are the ones usually reported in the mainstream media. But the neocon hawks understand the imperial aspects of the TPP as shown by the words of the hegemonist John McCain, again according to the Guardian:
Senator John McCain criticized the move. ‘President Trump’s decision to formally withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a serious mistake that will have lasting consequences for the American economy and our strategic position in the Asia Pacific region,’ he said. (Emphasis, jw)
Looking abroad, TPP has been running into troubles in East Asia as well, with Vietnam, the Philippines Malaysia and possibly even the Republic of Korea (South Korea) moving toward closer ties with China and away from U.S. engineered strife between China and its neighbors. We might well regard Trump’s position and those of the East Asian countries pulling away from the U.S. as manifestations of a new view of the world and a new balance of power already in place. From that point of view President Trump, by rejecting the TPP, is simply moving to negotiate the best deal possible for the U.S. in this new developing global arrangement.
The question for liberals/progressives is will they mindlessly oppose Trump on everything he does or support what is desirable and criticize what is not. That question will come to the fore soon if Trump and Tillerson manage to fashion Détente 2.0 with Russia. The War Party, both its neocon and liberal interventionist wings, will fiercely oppose this. Will liberals/progressives support and defend Détente 2.0 – or oppose it simply because it comes from Donald J. Trump?
John V. Walsh can be reached at john.endwar@gmail.com.
Give war a chance: Murdered MP’s report backs UK military intervention
RT | January 26, 2017
War should always be an available option for Britain, according to a report initiated by murdered Labour MP Jo Cox and finished by a former military intelligence officer-turned-Tory backbencher.
Due to be launched on Thursday by former prime minister Gordon Brown at the Policy Exchange think-tank, the study titled ‘The Cost of Doing Nothing’ seeks to recondition Britain’s ability to intervene militarily in the affairs of other nations.
Although the report was first begun by the late-Jo Cox, who was murdered by a far-right extremist in June of 2016, the study was finished by Conservative MP Tom Tugendhat and Cox’s parliamentary colleague Alison McGovern.
Tugendhat was a colonel in British Army intelligence and served a number of operational tours in Afghanistan and Iraq before becoming an MP.
The report warns that the UK has become bogged down in anti-interventionism because of the unpopularity of failed wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
It warns against a “selective reading” of history, while arguing that “successful” examples like Sierra Leone and Kosovo should be examined in more depth.
The authors also try to argue that, as the report’s title suggests, the cost of inaction in places like Rwanda, and more recently Syria, should be taken into consideration.
In an accompanying piece published in the Telegraph, Tugendhat writes that his experience as a soldier and Cox’s as an aid worker gave them particular expertise on the subject.
“The UK has at times swung towards non-intervention but the long view shows clearly that Britain has done better, both for ourselves and the wider world, when we have championed international law, human rights, the international community, and the responsibility to protect the most vulnerable,” Tugendhat argues.
He insisted that “Britain is a positive influence in the world” and that to “remain an effective ally, we must be prepared to engage, cooperate, and keep military intervention as a legitimate foreign-policy option.”
The report was quickly rubbished by the Stop the War Coalition (StWC).
“The Chilcot Report and recent Parliamentary Committee Reports on Iraq Libya and Syria have all concluded that the interventions were disastrous,” the group said in a statement.
“All of the countries recently attacked by British armed forces are now failed states,” it stressed.
The anti-war group also pointed to public opinion.
“The majority of the British public have grasped these facts and the obvious truth that bombs can under no circumstances be humanitarian instruments,” the coalition said.
“Polls show most oppose existing and future wars and wish to see a shift towards a foreign policy based on mutual respect, negotiation and diplomacy.”
Xi Jinping: Nuclear weapons … should be completely prohibited
International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War | January 24, 2017
IPPNW welcomes the statement by Chinese President Xi Jinping that “nuclear weapons … should be completely prohibited and destroyed over time to make the world free of them.” President Xi’s remarks, made during a speech on January 18 at the United Nations in Geneva, were consistent with China’s long-standing official support for nuclear disarmament, and come as the UN is preparing to convene negotiations on a new treaty to prohibit nuclear weapons.
China gave a positive signal at the UN General Assembly last month, unlike its other P5 partners, when it abstained from, rather than voting against, a resolution authorizing negotiations for a treaty banning nuclear weapons. The resolution was carried by a majority of over three to one. China can now show real leadership by declaring its intention to participate in the negotiating conference for the ban treaty opening this March, with the goal of making the complete prohibition of nuclear weapons an unequivocal international norm. By doing so, China would not only take an important practical step toward the elimination of nuclear weapons, it would also send a strong signal to the other eight nuclear-armed states that their objections to the negotiations and their criticisms of the treaty itself are misplaced, and that their massive reinvestments in nuclear warheads, delivery systems, and infrastructure are dangerous and contradictory to the goal of a world without nuclear weapons. The obligation to achieve that goal is spelled out in Article VI of the 1970 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, and the International Court of Justice has unanimously said that all States, whether or not they possess nuclear arms, have an obligation under international law to negotiate nuclear disarmament.
IPPNW urges China to act upon President Xi’s timely and important policy statement by sending a delegation to the opening session of the ban treaty negotiating conference in March, with clear instructions to participate in good faith and in cooperation with the non-nuclear-armed states leading this historic process.
Trident whistleblower tells RT he ‘witnessed 4 unreported missile test failures’
RT | January 24, 2017
Royal Navy whistleblower William McNeilly leaked details about a number of serious test fire issues aboard Britain’s Trident nuclear submarine fleet a whole year before the June 2016 misfire that sent a missile careening towards the US.
McNeilly published a dossier highlighting a range of safety and security failures aboard Trident submarines in May 2015 – more than a year before the latest mishap.
The Royal Navy submariner was detained and quietly discharged in June of that year. Senior officers even sought to discredit McNeilly’s claims by portraying him as an ill-informed junior sailor.
Speaking exclusively to RT on Tuesday, McNeilly said he now feels vindicated.
“I warned about this exact event over a year before it happened. I was in the MCC / Missile Control Center during the end of patrol tests in early 2015 and I witnessed with my own eyes the Trident system fail its simulated missile launch tests.”
McNeilly claims to have seen Trident “fail 3 out of 3 WP 186 Missile Compensating Tests” first-hand. He also says a “Battle Readiness Test (BRT) was not even attempted due to seawater in the hydraulic system.”
The whistleblower’s comments come a day after the British government faced questions over a misfire incident that occurred in June of 2016, just weeks before a crucial Parliamentary vote on Trident’s renewal. The US government apparently requested that news of the defective missile be kept secret to prevent mutual embarrassment.
Citing his extensive technical training as a submarine weapons engineer, McNeilly said it was his job “to learn about missile tests, conduct missile tests, pass tests on missile tests, be in the Missile Control Center during missile tests…”
“I had missile tests signed off in my task book. They wouldn’t have been signed off in my task book if I didn’t know anything about them, and clearly I was proven to be right.
“The government attempted to cover up the failed missile test and they covered up all the other information in my Trident report.”
Trident dossier
In his 18-page dossier, released to WikiLeaks in May of 2015, McNeilly offered anecdotal evidence of potentially catastrophic failures that took place during a series of end-of-patrol “shakedown” tests, designed to see whether the weapons system “could have performed a successful launch.”
It was during one such end-of-patrol test that the June 2016 misfire took place.
According to McNeilly, the routine tests are vital to determining “if we really were providing the UK’s strategic nuclear deterrent.”
The test McNeilly witnessed was “carried out 3 times and it failed, 3 times.”
“Basically the test showed that the missile compensation system wouldn’t have compensated for the changes in weight of the submarine during missile launches. Which means the missiles would’ve been launched on an unstable platform, if they decided to launch.”
Other readiness exercises carried out at the end of the patrol also went wrong, claims McNeilly.
“Another test was the Battle Readiness Test (BRT), which proves that the muzzle hatches could’ve opened whilst on patrol,” said McNeilly, explaining that “the BRT was cancelled due to the main hydraulic system containing mostly seawater instead of actual hydraulic oil.”
McNeilly has accused the British government of “endangering the public and spending billions upon billions of taxpayers’ money for a system so broken it can’t even do the tests that prove it works.”
Read more:
Fallon refuses to explain alleged Trident nuke malfunction, as US officials spill the beans
Theresa May must explain Trident malfunction ‘cover up,’ say opponents
RT | January 23, 2017
Labour and the Scottish National Party (SNP) say Prime Minister Theresa May must explain why Parliament was not told about a failed Trident missile test before a crucial vote on whether to renew Britain’s aging nuclear weapons program.
Downing Street confirmed on Monday morning that May knew about the malfunction before MPs voted on the system’s renewal.
A spokesperson said the incident occurred on former PM David Cameron’s watch, but admitted May had known about it.
The incident, in which a test fired missile veered towards the United States, was not reported until Sunday, but occurred only weeks before a key Commons vote on Trident renewal.
The spokesperson confirmed the crew of the nuclear submarine involved, HMS Vengeance, were “certified” to continue operating.
The vote went overwhelmingly in favor of renewal after May lobbied hard for the UK’s nuclear deterrent.
Almost immediately after Downing Street’s confession, a statement on behalf of David Cameron’s former media team denied any cover up had taken place.
A spokesman claimed it was “entirely false to suggest David Cameron’s media team covered up or tried to cover up the Trident missile test,” according to the Huffington Post.
The Cameron team also criticized claims of a cover-up made by defense committee chair Julian Lewis earlier on Monday.
“We are disappointed that Julian Lewis would make these claims with no evidence.”
Leading figures in both parties are set to use the incident, which occurred in June 2016 just weeks before a House of Commons vote on renewal, to attack the government. News of the missile malfunction only emerged on Sunday.
The SNP is committed to opposing it on the basis of safety and security, as the nuclear submarine fleet is based in Scotland.
The Labour leadership is opposed to nuclear weapons, but the majority of its parliamentary party is in favor of renewal.
SNP defense spokesman Brendan O’Hara told the BBC there are political and operational issues which must be addressed, but warned “this is not a national security issue.”
“The government can’t, as they love to do, hide behind the national security smokescreen. The public, who are paying over two hundred thousand million pounds [US$249 billion] for this renewal, have a right to know if it works or not,” O’Hara said.
Labour’s Shadow Defense Secretary Nia Griffiths said a full explanation is due, while Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell said it is “extremely worrying” that parliament had not been informed of the incident.
Likewise former Labour Defense Minister Kevan Jones told Labour List, “If there are problems, they should not have been covered up in this ham-fisted way. Ministers should come clean if there are problems and there should an urgent inquiry into what happened.”
In a car-crash interview on Sunday with the BBC, May refused to disclose whether she knew about the incident ahead of the vote on Trident. MPs ruled in favor of renewal by 472 votes to 117.
Instead she opted to say she had complete faith in Trident and that she thought “we should defend our country,” with repeated references to Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s opposition to Trident.
Senior military figures have also weighed in, with former head of the Royal Navy Lord West of Spithead writing in the Daily Mail that this had been a cover-up “worthy of North Korea.”
“The decision to withhold news last summer that a Trident missile test experienced some kind of problem – ironically, almost certainly minor – is both bizarre and spectacularly stupid,” West said in an opinion piece, urging Defense Secretary Michael Fallon to step up and explain.
Senior Tories have been attempting a fightback on the issue, with Business Minister Greg Clark telling Sky News “It’s been the long-standing policy not to comment on tests of weapons systems and, if that’s the approach that you take, I think we have to abide by that approach.”
This argument somewhat falls down on the fact that successful tests are regularly reported, including with video of the launches.
Tory head of the Defense Committee Julian Lewis said as much in his intervention early on Monday.
“This sort of event is one that you can’t play both ways … whenever they work, which is 99 percent of the time, films are released of them working,” he said.
Lewis said someone should be held to account for the decision.
“I always think with something like this it is better to lay it on the line … In the end you have always got to assume that something like this will come out,” Lewis said.
Read more:
Trump’s Foreign Policy: An Unwise Inconsistency?
By Ron Paul | January 23, 2017
Throughout the presidential campaign, Donald Trump’s foreign policy positions have been anything but consistent. One day we heard that NATO was obsolete and the US needs to pursue better relations with Russia. But the next time he spoke, these sensible positions were abandoned or an opposite position was taken. Trump’s inconsistent rhetoric left us wondering exactly what kind of foreign policy he would pursue if elected.
The President’s inaugural speech was no different. On the one hand it was very encouraging when he said that under his Administration the US would “seek friendship and goodwill with the nations of the world,” and that he understands the “right of all nations to put their own interests first.” He sounded even better when he said that under Trump the US would “not seek to impose our way of life on anyone, but rather to let it shine as an example. We will shine for everyone to follow.” That truly would be a first step toward peace and prosperity.
However in the very next line he promised a worldwide war against not a country, but an ideology, when he said he would, “unite the civilized world against radical Islamic terrorism, which we will eradicate from the face of the Earth.” This inconsistent and dangerous hawkishess will not defeat “radical Islamic terrorism,” but rather it will increase it. Terrorism is not a place, it is a tactic in reaction to invasion and occupation by outsiders, as Professor Robert Pape explained in his important book, Dying to Win.
The neocons repeat the lie that ISIS was formed because the US military pulled out of Iraq instead of continuing its occupation. But where was ISIS before the US attack on Iraq? Nowhere. ISIS was a reaction to the US invasion and occupation of Iraq. The same phenomenon has been repeated wherever US interventionist actions have destabilized countries and societies.
Radical Islamic terrorism is for the most part a reaction to foreign interventionism. It will never be defeated until this simple truth is understood.
We also heard reassuring reports that President Trump was planning a major shake-up of the US intelligence community. With a budget probably approaching $100 billion, the intelligence community is the secret arm of the US empire. The CIA and other US agencies subvert elections and overthrow governments overseas, while billions are spent spying on American citizens at home. Neither of these make us safer or more prosperous.
But all the talk about a major shake up at the CIA under Trump was quickly dispelled when the President visited the CIA on his first full working day in office. Did he tell them a new sheriff was in town and that they would face a major and long-overdue reform? No. He merely said he was with them “1000 percent.”
One reason Trump sounds so inconsistent in his policy positions is that he does not have a governing philosophy. He is not philosophically opposed to a US military empire so sometimes he sounds in favor of more war and sometimes he sounds like he opposes it. Will President Trump in this case be more influenced by those he has chosen to serve him in senior positions? We can hope not, judging from their hawkishness in recent Senate hearings. Trump cannot be for war and against war simultaneously. Let us hope that once the weight of the office settles on him he will understand that the prosperity he is promising can only come about through a consistently peaceful foreign policy.
Some 1,000 People Participated in Anti-NATO Protest in Northeastern Italy
Sputnik – 22.01.2017
VICENZA – About 1,000 protesters participated on Saturday in a demonstration against NATO bases and major infrastructure projects of the local authorities, such as construction of a motorway and a railway for high-speed trains, in the city of Vicenza, located in northeastern Italy.
According to a RIA Novosti correspondent, the march was headed by the No Dal Molin Movement, opposing a US airbase located in the north of the city. The protesters carried a huge banner, saying “Protection of land for the future without military bases.”
“Until the people do not mobilize, until they put pressure on the government to expel the US military from our territory, politicians will do nothing as they are not interested in it. Politicians should be forced to give us an answer, and now they do not want to do this at the moment,” one of the march’s organizers Francesco Pavin told RIA Novosti.
The demonstration was sanctioned by local authorities and was accompanied by a police escort.
There are a total of four NATO bases in the Vicenza area.
During his presidential campaign, US President Donald Trump repeatedly stated that the United States should decrease the support of other NATO member states and protect only those members of the alliance, who “fulfill their obligations” in respect to Washington.
US drone strikes in Yemen, absolutely atrocious: Analyst
Press TV – January 22, 2017
Separate US drone attacks have killed four people in the southwestern Yemeni province of Bayda. The United States carries out drone attacks in Yemen and several other countries, claiming to be targeting al-Qaeda elements, but, local sources say civilians have been the main victims of the attacks. The drone strikes in Yemen continue alongside the Saudi military aggression against the impoverished conflict-ridden country.
A radio host and political commentator says US drone strikes are “absolutely atrocious,” adding that Washington is directly involved in Yemen’s war when it is “actively dropping bombs” on the war-torn country.
“I do not think a lot of the people in the United States even realize that United States is actually bombing Yemen. They think that the United States is simply supplying arms to Saudi Arabia, but the fact is United States is actually in there bombing people themselves with these drone strikes,” Max Igan told Press TV in an interview on Sunday.
He noted that it is “pretty outrageous” and “terrible” that the drone strikes are going on at the time of US presidential transition.
The commentator further argued that if US President Donald Trump wants to deescalate the war on terror and try to bring about stability and peace to the Middle East, he should stop the drone strikes.
Elsewhere in his remarks, Igan criticized the Western media for not reporting anything about the war and the dire humanitarian situation in Yemen.
“It is one of the most unreported wars that we have seen in modern history. Nobody really realizes what is going on there, we do not hear anything about it on the media … we are not hearing about this war and it is an ongoing human rights catastrophe. There are so many people suffering in Yemen, it is almost impossible to get aid to these people and the arms just keep getting poured in there and the bombs just keep getting dropped and the media is not reporting anything about it,” he said.
He concluded by saying that there needs to be some sort of an organization in the world that can do something to stop this ongoing onslaught of the Yemeni people.
Trump has Opportunity to End Obama/Clinton Weapons Sales to Anti-Woman Tyrants
I attended the women’s rights rally in Portland, Oregon, today to support women worldwide and urge Trump to end Obama and Hillary Clinton’s record weapons deals with the most repressive state for women in the world, the totalitarian dictatorship of Saudi Arabia.
In 2010, the Clinton state department organized the biggest weapons sale in US history. The sale was to strongman Abdullah Abdullaziz, who had women executed as punishment for being raped. The Kerry state department followed the deal with a sale of almost a billion dollars worth of illegal cluster bombs to the dictator. Obama approved both deals.
Bloomberg reports Clinton’s weapons sales to woman-oppressing dictators increased dramatically after the tyrants ‘donated’ to what Harper’s magazine calls the Clintons’ ‘slush fund’, the Clinton Foundation.
An unfortunate aspect of much of the current anti-Trump upheaval around the country is that similar actions were not undertaken when policies Democrats would or will oppose if Trump carries them out were not opposed by Democrats when Obama and Hillary Clinton performed them.
However, this is largely because the general public is kept ignorant of most of these policies. Such actions, Dr. Chalmers Johnson has noted, are “kept secret” from the US-American public.
Respected analysts this week highlighted the disparity between Obama’s treatment in the neoliberal press and his actual record.
John Pilger quotes a typically sycophantic example of a description of Obama, this one from The Guardian:
“But the grace. The all-encompassing grace: in manner and form, in argument and intellect, with humour and cool … [He] is a blazing tribute to what has been, and what can be again … He seems ready to keep fighting, and remains a formidable champion to have on our side … The grace … the almost surreal levels of grace …”
Nicolas J S Davies outlines the reality: Obama, whose political career has been sponsored by, among many other similar elements, lethal weapons manufacturer General Dynamics, “has increased U.S. military spending beyond the post-World War II record set by President George W. Bush. Now that Obama has signed the military budget for FY2017, the final record is that Obama has spent an average of $653.6 billion per year, outstripping Bush by an average of $18.7 billion per year (in 2016 dollars).
In historical terms, after adjusting for inflation, Obama’s military spending has been 56 percent higher than Clinton’s, 16 percent higher than Reagan’s, and 42 percent more than the U.S. Cold War average…”
Under Obama, “… the U.S. and its allies dropped 20,000 bombs and missiles in his first term. In his second term, they have dropped four times that number, bringing the total for Obama’s presidency to over 100,000 bombs and missiles striking seven countries, surpassing the 70,000 unleashed on five countries by George W. Bush.”
Pilger notes Obama ordered an average of 72 explosive devices to be planted and detonated every day in 2016.
Davies continues that Obama has used the US’s Central American model of favoring proxy-armies and death-squads over sending in US troops, and has thus provided arms and ignited and fueled conflicts that have killed hundreds of thousands around the world.
But the strategy has also included “a massive expansion of U.S. special operations forces, now deployed to 138 different countries, compared with only 60 when Obama took office.”
Pilger notes this “amounted to a full-scale invasion of Africa.”
Highlighting what these US operations and hegemonic expansion mysteriously achieve, Oxfam this week released a report noting that about 8 people now control as much wealth as half the world’s population. This is down from 16 people within the past year or so, and around 70 people before that.
Within the US, while thousands of the poorest people in places like Detroit had their water turned off in violation of the universal declaration of human rights, Obama allocated a trillion dollars to the nuclear arsenal, in violation of legal obligations and agreements.
And while he has refused to prosecute torturers and war criminals from the Bush Jr. regime (let alone his own), he has waged a campaign of persecution against those who have exposed torture and war crimes.
Amnesty International and other groups note a highlight of Obama’s presidency was his recent commutation of the sentence of US political prisoner Chelsea Manning, who released documents exposing some US war crimes. But the commutation came after an offer from another, higher-value whistle-blower and political prisoner, Julian Assange, to accept extradition to the US in exchange for clemency for Manning.
Others note Obama has deported millions of people and increased military aid to human rights violators like Israel and Saudi Arabia more than any other president.
While at least some Democrats would express opposition to these actions if they were performed by Trump, this cannot necessarily be called hypocrisy, since the US and Western propaganda model (corporations dumping billions into favored media outlets to overwhelm the market) prevents the vast majority of them from knowing Obama undertook the actions himself.
This is not new. Similar demonstrations expressing disgust were carried out by Democrats and others during the inauguration of Bush Jr., but not in opposition to policies carried out by Clinton such as his genocide in Iraq that killed some 500,000 children, his support for terrorist Paul Kagame in Rwanda, which has contributed to the deaths of millions, or Clinton’s aggression against Yugoslavia.
Continuing to illustrate how these and other crimes are “kept secret” from or distorted for the US and Western public, Reuters this week said the US/NATO aggression against Yugoslavia was carried out in response to Serbia “killing about 10,000 ethnic Albanian civilians there.”
But Noam Chomsky and other US/Western propaganda analysts note that according to the West’s own monitors, including the British Parliamentary inquiry into the matter, this is a reversal of the chronology.
In the year before the US/NATO attack, about 2,000 people were killed due the conflict in Yugoslavia, with more killings attributed to the KLA – the terrorist-integrated guerilla force backed by the US and Western countries – than to the Serbs. Before the US/NATO attack, the killings had mostly subsided, but the KLA continued to carry out provocations to, as it stated, try to instigate NATO intervention on its behalf.
Wesley Clarke, the NATO commander at the time, said bombing Yugoslavia would cause more deaths and atrocities than would occur without Western bombing. Others agreed, but, with Hillary Clinton’s urging, Bill Clinton began bombing the country, leading to the “about” 10,000 deaths Reuters this week says the bombing was a response to.
The Reuters article also mysteriously fails to mention that if the US had intervened to prevent atrocities, it would not have been supporting what Dr. Michael Parenti, in a book on the topic written under the supervision of Balkan experts, notes were worse atrocities carried out by Turkey (against the Kurds) and other regimes around the world.
Through countless similar distortions and omissions, the US/Western propaganda model thus continues to keep Democrats uninformed and thus complacent or supportive of politicians who carry out actions Democrats sometimes vehemently oppose when the same actions are planned or carried out by Republicans.
Comparable dynamics are also true in reverse.
Robert J. Barsocchini is an independent researcher and reporter whose interest in propaganda and global force dynamics arose from working as a cross-cultural intermediary for large corporations in the film and Television industry. His work has been cited, published, or followed by numerous professors, economists, lawyers, military and intelligence veterans, and journalists. Updates on Twitter.
Mainstream British Press Propaganda Ramps Up Dangerous War Rhetoric
By Graham Vanbergen | TruePublica | January 18, 2017
The British press are in full hysteria propaganda mode when it comes to demonising our new greatest threat on planet earth; not climate change, a global pandemic, international terrorism, or America’s new foe in the South China Sea – but Russia.
The Telegraph 31/12/16: “Systemic, relentless, predatory’ Russian cyber threat to US power grid exposed as malware found on major electricity company computer.”
The Independent 13/12/16: “Highly probable Russian interfered with Brexit referendum.”
The Express 15/01/17: “Russians forcing RAF to abort missions in Syria by ‘hacking into’ their systems”
The Guardian 14/01/17: “Senior British politicians ‘targeted by Kremlin’ for smear campaigns”
In all of these newspaper reports, and there are plenty more of them, not a single scrap of actual evidence other than hearsay is published. In the case of the Express story, it’s allegations are backed up with the statement “It is entirely feasible that Russia has targeted Tornadoes and Typhoons in this way,” said air defence expert Justin Bronk, of the Royal United Services Institute think-tank.” This is not evidence.
In the case of the Telegraph, this fairy-tail has been 100% debunked as pure propaganda and the original report from the Washington Post ended with a full-on apology by its editor. The Telegraph has printed no such amendment or apology for its totally fictitious article.
The Guardian’s headline is pure misinformation as it’s sole point of evidence is an MP (Chris Bryant), explaining that incumbent Foreign Office ministers could not speak out on the (Russian hacking) issue because of security connotations, and said: “Any minister who goes into the Foreign Office and has responsibility for Russia, they [Moscow] will be, in any shape or form, trying to put together information about them.” As if to strengthen the ‘evidence’, Bryant says he is “absolutely certain that Boris Johnson, Liam Fox, Alan Duncan who has the Russia brief, and [Brexit secretary] David Davis will have been absolutely looked at.” This is not evidence.
The funny thing is this; the story may be true and quite probably is, but so what.
In October 2015, Britain’s own spy agency confirmed it was spying on Britain’s MP’s and at the time was given court immunity when challenged. It determined that MPs’ communications were not protected from surveillance by intelligence agencies. This case came about because Green Party MP Caroline Lucas, Baroness Jenny Jones and former MP George Galloway, [observed] that revelations from Edward Snowden, showed MPs’ communications were being spied on by GCHQ despite laws protecting them.
Around the same time we learn that a well known paedophile ran a lodge set up by GCHQ for its spies to monitor important political ‘targets’ ie our own MP’s and other public figures.
Back in 1983 Margaret Thatcher used Britain’s latest and most advanced surveillance system named ‘Echelon’ (Read: ECHELON – The Start of Britain’s Modern Day Spying Operations) to Spy on Government Ministers’. It was an American design and the first major state surveillance system using satellite and IT systems to spy worldwide. Indeed Echelon was originally created in the 1960s to monitor the military and diplomatic communications of the Soviet Union and its Eastern Bloc allies throughout the Cold War by Britain and America. All of this data being shared with America, a foreign government.
America’s NSA monitored the phone conversations of 35 world leaders in another Snowden leak three years ago. Germany’s Spiegel reported in 2014 that “Documents show Britain’s GCHQ signals intelligence agency has targeted European, German and Israeli politicians for surveillance.” So distrustful of the British that Chancellor Merkel announced a counter-espionage offensive designed to curb mass surveillance conducted by the US NSA and its British counterpart, GCHQ. Today it is reported by IntelNews that the “discord between British and German intelligence services, which began at the same time in 2014, allegedly persists and now constitutes the “biggest rift between the secret services” of the two countries “since World War II”.
Just six months ago we found out that “GCHQ and NSA routinely spy on UK politicians’ e-mails” that included privileged correspondence between parliamentarians and their constituents and before that, internal MI5, MI6 and GCHQ documents reveal routine interception of legally privileged communications. The information obtained was exploited unlawfully to be used by the agencies in the fighting of court cases in which they themselves were involved.
Amazingly, we recently find out just last week that Israeli embassy staff, quite likely Mossad operatives – “are working with senior political activists and politicians in the Conservative and Labour parties to subvert their own parties from within, and skew British foreign policy so that it benefits Israeli, rather than British interests.” And yet, there has been little comment in the British press about foreign infiltration of government minsters by Israel.
If Russia were not spying on our MP’s, they would be the only ones not at it. No-one trusts anyone. Spying is old news and fully expected. We are ALL being spied on nowadays.
The British press are complicit in their reckless rhetoric designed to instill fear into the population with dangerous propaganda that could easily lead to tensions becoming so dangerous that a real ‘hot war’ starts. Whilst America is shielded by continental Europe and the Atlantic ocean, Britain could be used as a pawn to be sacrificed on the international chess-game of winner-takes-all. We have no ‘special-relationship’, there never has been one, and an irresponsible press being a mouthpiece that ramps up the stress between the US/NATO and Russia is absolutely against the interests and national security of Britain.
As Laurence Krauss’s (chair of the board of sponsors of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, and is on the board of the Federation of American Scientists) article last October alarmingly points out – “Trump has said he would consider using nuclear weapons against ISIS and suggested that it would be good for the world if Japan, South Korea, and Saudi Arabia acquired them.” Trump could be one seriously dangerous individual for world peace – who knows!
So much for Trump but as Krauss goes on to say that “In general, during the Obama presidency, we have only deepened our dangerous embrace of nuclear weapons. At the moment, around a thousand nuclear weapons are still on a hair-trigger alert; as they were during the Cold War, they are ready to be launched in minutes in response to a warning of imminent attack.”
Who in their right mind would support this lunacy?
Nuclear cover-up: Failure of Trident ballistic missile test near US coast – report
RT | January 22, 2017
A Trident missile fired last year from a Royal Navy nuclear submarine off the Florida coast malfunctioned and headed to the mainland during a routine test, but Whitehall ordered a news blackout to avoid “severe panic,” the Sunday Times reported.
The Trident ballistic missile was set to be tested for the first time in four years by the HMS Vengeance last June off the Florida coast, according to the Sunday Times.
Vengeance, the fourth and final Vanguard-class nuclear-capable submarine of the Royal Navy, had undergone a refit in Devonport dockyard before heading out for a firing test to verify if the ship and her crew were ready for active service.
In June last year, the submarine docked at Port Canaveral in Florida, the US base employed by the Royal Navy for final checks, before launching an unarmed Trident missile into the so-called “Eastern firing range” off the west coast of Africa.
There have only been five firing tests by UK Vanguard-class submarines in the 21st century, the Sunday Times wrote, and the launches are usually big occasions for the Royal Navy, as the missiles cost 17 million pounds ($21 million) apiece.
No news reports followed the test, however, and no usual “successful test flight” announcement was made at that time.
A navy source told the newspaper that “something went wrong” after the Trident was fired from the submerged submarine. Details of the failure were not officially disclosed, but the source believes the missile might have veered off in the wrong direction toward the American mainland instead of heading across the Atlantic.
“There was severe panic that this test launch was not successful. Senior figures in military and government were keen that the information was not made public,” the source said. A malfunction of the ballistic missile – deemed the backbone of British strategic deterrent – could lead to terrifying casualties. It could also raise questions about the reliability of the Royal Navy’s nuclear arsenals.
“Ultimately, Downing Street decided to cover up the failed test,” the source added. “If the information was made public, they knew how damaging it would be to the credibility of our nuclear deterrent. The upcoming Trident vote made it all the more sensitive.”
UK Prime Minister Theresa May avoided any mention of the failed test to ensure that MPs approve spending of 40 billion pounds on new Trident submarines, in her first major speech before last July. Notably, more than 100 MPs voted against the proposal, including members of Scottish National Party (SNP) and the Labour Party, who argued that the money spent on nuclear arms could have been put to better use.
On Sunday, talking to the BBC, May again refused to say whether she knew about the reported failure or not. She said she had “absolute confidence” in the country’s nuclear deterrence system, but avoided giving a direct reply when asked to comment on The Times report.
The British government has not officially confirmed the newspaper’s report on the misfire, but The Times quoted the ministry of defense as saying that Vengeance “conducted a routine unarmed Trident missile test launch,” and that the submarine and her crew “were successfully tested and certified.” It declined to elaborate on the causes of the malfunction “for obvious national security reasons.”
Lockheed Martin, the Trident manufacturer, did not comment on the issue either.
In 2015, William McNeilly, a former Navy weapons engineer who allegedly served aboard the HMS Victorious, claimed that a number of security lapses and technical issues with the Trident-armed submarines exposed the UK nuclear deterrent to potential terrorist attacks.
According to open sources, Vanguard-class submarines carry 200 nuclear warheads as well as so-called ‘letters of last resort’ of the British prime minister that are to be used in the event of a national disaster or an incapacitating nuclear strike. Stored inside safes in the control room of each submarine, the letters are believed to include the orders: “Put yourself under the command of the US, if it is still there”; “Go to Australia”; “Retaliate”; or “Use your own judgment,” according to the Guardian.
Labour MP Kevan Jones, who is calling for an inquiry into the report with Defence Secretary Michael Fallon, is expected to be called to the House of Commons.
“The UK’s independent nuclear deterrent is a vital cornerstone for the nation’s defence,” Kevan said.
“If there are problems, they should not have been covered up in this ham-fisted way. Ministers should come clean if there are problems and there should be an urgent inquiry into what happened.
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Fanatical Followers of the Covid Regime: A Jim Jones-Style Cult?
By Professor Roger Watson and Dr. Niall McCrae | The Daily Sceptic | November 15, 2021
As scholars at leading British universities over recent decades, we witnessed the replacement of critical thinking and debate by narrative: facts are discrimination and scientific method is imperialism; truth, instead, is derived from ‘progressive’ values. This educational trend may be a major contributory factor to the ease in which society has been inculcated to the Covid ‘new normal’ of masking, testing, and repeated doses of vaccines for a disease of similar risk to severe influenza.
One doesn’t need much critical reasoning to observe the flawed logic of some vaccination enthusiasts, such as people who respond to experiencing any side effects, however debilitating, by saying “at least I know it’s working”, or, after contracting the disease despite their promised inoculation (over 90% effective, according to initial drug company claims), “I’d have been worse off without the jab.” … continue
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